JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT...

Day 2.

The storm has finally calmed. The waves have finally settled. I can finally see something blue in the horizon, and the clouds are finally breaking away into smaller, feathery-like set pieces in the sky. I don't know how long this peace of mind will last, but I want to loose myself in it, feel it, revel on it until it lasts.

Just a few days ago, I was in a very chaotic state of mind. I know some of you may have been thinking it was just a small thing, not really important. All I need to do is choose. In an ideal world, I would've chosen what I want over what I need to do. But this is not an ideal world, isn't it?

In the last few days that I have been reflecting, I realized and finally accepted how I should exhibit more patience in discernment. FAITH = PATIENCE, and vice versa. In the beginning, I thought I was ready... as in super ready for anything that comes my way when I decided to finally give this thing a go. I can still remember that time, when all things, signs and circumstances were pointing to just one direction --- to answer the Lord's call to become His full-time worker. But then, if there's one thing I've learned from this experience, it is not how accurate you interpret the signs that are being revealed to you, but how strong and determined your heart is to do what you really want to do. I should just speak and ask, I should also learn to listen to His voice. I should learn to fully submit myself to His will, learn to fully let go and accept this huge challenge that will be thrown at me once I make up my mind to really do this.

Patience. That's what the Lord is trying to tell me. That's what I have been struggling with for the last five or so years. I am an impatient person, in all aspects. I always want an immediate answer. I noticed that there were times I am not grateful with what I have and that is a big NO-NO.

In my reflection this morning, I have come to realize that the Lord wants me to experience full joy in what I have now. He wants me to be grateful every day no matter how small the amount of money in my pocket is, how heavy the traffic in EDSA (which is by the way my everyday enemy when I go to work) is, how stressful and sometimes unbelievable my students are at work, how tired and exhausted I am after a day's work, and so on and so forth. I've got an endless list of things that is and will break my heart but despite all of these, the Lord wants me to still stick with Him, trust His plan, and continue running the race.

I may not be a full-time worker but I know that I am now doing God's work and I am happy that He has chosen me to further bring glory to Him. In my heart, I know that time will come when I don't feel any worries anymore... that I will truly become FEARLESS... and I can truly say I am ready to live and die for Him.

So friend, if you have a lot of unanswered prayers right now, don't lose hope. Be faithful to your prayer, just how the Lord has been faithful to us all throughout this life. Listen to His voice, pray for an open and understanding mind, for a calm heart, so that He can lead you to His will. :-)

This verse might be very helpful in your reflection for today:

"2 Moses said to the people: “Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments. 3 He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord. 14 “Do not forget the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery; 15 who guided you through the vast and terrible desert with its saraph serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock 16 and fed you in the desert with manna, a food unknown to your fathers.”

- Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16